What’s in it
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24 books with the same feel
Include books by the same authorMonoculture: How One Story is Changing Everything
F.S. Michaels · 190 pages
"As human beings, we've always told stories: stories about who we are, where we come from, and where we're going. Now imagine that one of those stories is taking over the others, narrowing our diversity and creating a monoculture. Because of the rise of the economic story, six areas of your world -- your work, your relationships with others and the environment, your community, your physical and sp
The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined
Steven Pinker · 802 pages
From Goodreads: Selected by *The New York Times Book Review* as a Notable Book of the Year The author of *The New York Times* bestseller *The Stuff* of Thought offers a controversial history of violence. Faced with the ceaseless stream of news about war, crime, and terrorism, one could easily think we live in the most violent age ever seen. Yet as *New York Times* bestselling author Steven Pin
Cruel Optimism
Lauren Berlant · 342 pages
Lauren Berlant explores individual and collective affective responses to the unraveling of the U.S. and European economies by analzying mass media, literature, television, film, and video.
Consuming Life
Zygmunt Bauman · 160 pages
"With the advent of liquid modernity, the society of producers is transformed into a society of consumers. In this new consumer society, individuals become simultaneously the promoters of commodities and the commodities they promote. They are, at one and the same time, the merchandise and the marketer, the goods and the travelling salespeople. They all inhabit the same social space that is customa
Capitalist Realism: Is There No Alternative?
Mark Fisher · 100 pages
It is easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism. After 1989, capitalism has successfully presented itself as the only realistic political-economic system - a situation that the bank crisis of 2008, far from ending, actually compounded. The book analyses the development and principal features of this capitalist realism as a lived ideological framework. Using examples from po
Liars and Outliers: Enabling the Trust that Society Needs to Thrive
Bruce Schneier · 366 pages
In today's hyper-connected society, understanding the mechanisms of trust is crucial. Issues of trust are critical to solving problems as diverse as corporate responsibility, global warming, and the political system. In this insightful and entertaining book, Schneier weaves together ideas from across the social and biological sciences to explain how society induces trust. He shows the unique role
Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism
Fredric Jameson · 438 pages
This wide-ranging work seeks to crystallize a definition of postmodernism. The author looks at the postmodern across a wide landscape, from high art to low; from market ideology to architecture, from painting to punk; film, from video art to literature.
Everything Is Obvious: How Common Sense Fails
Duncan J. Watts · 335 pages
Discusses how the concept of common sense is inadequate in an increasingly complex world and draws on multiple disciplines to offer insight into the sources of such topics as popularity, economics, and self-deception.
The Condition of Postmodernity: An Enquiry into the Origins of Cultural Change
David Harvey · 378 pages
Traces the development of the concept of postmodernism, explains its differences with modernism, and discusses political and social influences.
The Rebel Sell: Why the Culture Can't Be Jammed
Joseph Heath, Andrew Potter · 376 pages
The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere: An Inquiry Into a Category of Bourgeois Society
Jurgen Habermas · 314 pages
This is Jurgen Habermas's most concrete historical-sociological book and one of the key contributions to political thought in the postwar period. It will be a revelation to those who have known Habermas only through his theoretical writing to find his later interests in problems of legitimation and communication foreshadowed in this lucid study of the origins, nature, and evolution of public opini
The Craftsman
Richard Sennett · 331 pages
Why do people work hard, and take pride in what they do? This book, a philosophically-minded enquiry into practical activity of many different kinds past and present, is about what happens when people try to do a good job. It asks us to think about the true meaning of skill in the 'skills society' and argues that pure competition is a poor way to achieve quality work. Sennett suggests, instead, th
The Road to Character
David Brooks · 320 pages
With the wisdom, humor, curiosity, and sharp insights that have brought millions of readers to his New York Times column and his previous bestsellers, David Brooks has consistently illuminated our daily lives in surprising and original ways. In The Social Animal, he explored the neuroscience of human connection and how we can flourish together. Now, in The Road to Character, he focuses on the deep
The Practice of Everyday Life
Michel de Certeau · 229 pages
Michel de Certeau considers the uses to which social representation and modes of social behavior are put by individuals and groups, describing the tactics available to the common man for reclaiming his own autonomy from the all-pervasive forces of commerce, politics, and culture. In exploring the public meaning of ingeniously defended private meanings, de Certeau draws on an immense theoretical li
Intellectuals and Society
Thomas Sowell · 611 pages
This is a book about intellectuals written for the lay person. Its purpose is to unravel the world of intellectuals in order to understand an important social phenomenon how the thinkers of our society mold that society, leaving an impact on people in every walk of life, even if they are basically unknown to the world at large. It is a portion of the population whose activities can have, and have
Doing Good Better: Effective Altruism and a Radical New Way to Make a Difference
William MacAskill · 272 pages
Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind
Yuval Noah Harari · 456 pages
From a renowned historian comes a groundbreaking narrative of humanity’s creation and evolution—a #1 international bestseller—that explores the ways in which biology and history have defined us and enhanced our understanding of what it means to be “human.” One hundred thousand years ago, at least six different species of humans inhabited Earth. Yet today there is only one—homo sapiens. What hap
The Communist Manifesto
Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels · 56 pages
"The Communist Manifesto," penned by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, is a revolutionary treatise advocating for the overthrow of capitalist systems and the establishment of a classless society. Published in 1848, its succinct yet powerful prose remains a cornerstone of socialist ideology, inspiring movements worldwide.
What Money Can't Buy: The Moral Limits of Markets
Michael J. Sandel · 256 pages
Should we pay children to read books or to get good grades? Should we allow corporations to pay for the right to pollute the atmosphere? Is it ethical to pay people to test risky new drugs or to donate their organs? What about hiring mercenaries to fight our wars? Auctioning admission to elite universities? Selling citizenship to immigrants willing to pay? In this book the author takes on one of t
The Culture Industry
Theodor W. Adorno · 194 pages
"The creation of the Frankfurt School of critical theory in the 1920s saw the birth of some of the most exciting and challenging writings of the twentieth century. It is out of this background that the great critic Theodor Adorno emerged. His finest essays are collected here, offering the reader unparalleled insights into Adorno's thoughts on culture. He argued that the culture industry commodifie